Medical Missions

Definition and Meaning

Medical missions is mission work in which medical professionals such as physicians and nurses care for the sick through clinical treatment, the founding of hospitals, and health education. Two understandings exist side by side: one regards medical work as a channel for evangelism, while the other regards caring for the sick as itself a ministry that makes the kingdom of God visible. The latter understanding has gained strength in movements that emphasize both evangelism and social responsibility, such as the Lausanne Movement.

Biblical and Historical Background

The Gospels record that Jesus Christ taught, preached, and healed diseases (Matthew 4:23). When Jesus sent out the Twelve, he also charged them with healing the sick (Luke 9:2). Paul called Luke "the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, published Primitive Physic, a medical handbook for the poor.

Missions in Korea also began through medicine. Horace Allen, a medical missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern Presbyterian), won the trust of the royal court in 1884 by treating Min Yeong-ik, who had been wounded during the Gapsin Coup. This led to the founding in 1885 of Gwanghyewon, a Western-style hospital that was soon renamed Jejungwon. Jejungwon was later succeeded by Severance Hospital, although views differ regarding that line of succession. The Methodist missionary William Scranton opened Sibyeongwon. Rosetta Hall devoted herself to medical care for women and to education for the blind, and she is known for training Esther Park (Kim Jeom-dong), Korea's first woman physician. Missionaries established hospitals in cities across the country, and many of these hospitals became the roots of today's university hospitals. After Korea's liberation, Chang Kee-ryo founded Gospel Hospital in Busan to treat refugees and established the Blue Cross Medical Insurance Cooperative.

Practice in the Korean Church

Today Korean churches carry out medical missions in a variety of ways:

• They send medical missionaries to hospitals and health ministry sites overseas.
• They form teams of church members who are medical professionals to provide free medical care during short-term missions.
• They operate free clinics in Korea for foreign workers, the homeless, and residents of rural and fishing communities.

Medical missions frequently overlaps with relief ministry, and Christian medical associations and denominational mission boards sometimes work together.

Emphases differ somewhat among denominations. Presbyterians in the Reformed tradition often describe medicine as one form of the common grace that God bestows on all people. The Holiness Church includes divine healing in its Fourfold Gospel (regeneration, sanctification, divine healing, and the Second Coming). Churches in the Pentecostal tradition place great importance on prayer for divine healing. These denominations also generally accept both prayer and medicine, but churches and theologians hold differing views on how the relationship between divine healing and medicine should be understood.